


Exegesis

by EffingEden



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Minor Character Death, Muggles Vs Wizards, Necromancy, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Talking skull, Time Travel, so many people are dead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 21:12:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13983426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EffingEden/pseuds/EffingEden
Summary: Peace was short lived after Voldemort's war was ended, another war coming close on its heels - one fought between wizards and muggles. Harry and George have a desperate plan, and almost shatter the world to do it. Time travel and Tom bothering ensue.





	Exegesis

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be for the '16 Big Bang but life happened and it derailed all my plans, but I really want to get back into fanfic writing. Please forgive ALL THE TROPES, or you know. Count them and tell me which ones you like most.

The trio barely spoke as they walked, their pace keeping them focused on gasping at the autumn-chill air. Through fields high with rippling golden wheat that was left unharvested, along tree-lined bridleways with leaves crunching underfoot. They gave a wide berth to roads and villages, creeping over rises and belly crawling into hedgerows when the man acting point did so.

It was as dusk was falling when the dark clothed man froze, his head jerking back the way they had come. “Chopper,” he said and a beat later Harry heard it too, the rhythmic mechanical throb that drove a beastial terror through him.

“Down,” George barked at their captive, twitching his wand downwards. Immediately he dropped, the Imperius allowing him no grace in the act. Harry unfurled the cloak and flung it over all three of them as they huddled close. The cloak wasn’t large enough to give them enough room to be comfortable. It wasn’t meant to be like this, he thought bitterly. It wasn’t meant to happen this way.

Harry remembered how Draco had been taken out, not even a month ago. Shot by a sniper, the burst of slick red that splattered over the map he had been looking at before the sound reached them, the thunderous crack of the shot, how he’d... crumpled.

“Hey, Harry,” George whispered, the breath of his words catching his hair, his wandless hand lifting to squeeze the nape of his neck. “Stop thinking what you’re thinking, ok? You’re shaking.”

“Sorry, George,” he said, hearing how raw and breathless his own voice was. “I just... Draco.”

The hand closed tighter for a moment before relaxing again. “We’ll get him back,” George said, fierce and sure. “That’s what we’re doing this for, yeah? We’re going to get them all back. Fix this mess.”

Harry nodded, thinking of who he had lost - what they had all lost. “Yeah. We’re close.” Draco had shown them where his manor was on the map before he’d died. Harry could have apparated there, he’d been before, but it was dangerous to use that much magic. The Muggles could trace it, either because they had developed technology or they were making use of a captive, no one knew which, but apperating would draw too much attention, and they needed time to get set up before... they did what must be done.

He tried not to think about that either. About their muggle captive breathing slow and steady under him.

The sound of the helicopter faded, but they stayed where they were for a few more long minutes, to be sure it wouldn’t sweep back around. Then George pulled himself free of the cloak and stood slowly, scouting around. “Get up,” he said curtly, “What do you think, press on? The closer we get to the Henge the more muggles there are.”

“If we go on, we can get there tonight,” Harry said, a heavy weight in his stomach as he bundled the cloak back up. “This isn’t going to get any easier in the waiting.”

There was a tightness in the corners of George’s eyes, a bitter twist on his mouth. “All right. Let’s move.”

\---

They moved in stops and starts, determined but forced by necessity to use caution. It had been hard enough when all they were facing was the armed forces, but since The Event other groups came into play, the IRA among the first but not the last. Harry had heard the muggle authorities were having a hard time keeping the general population from reverting to witch hunts against each other while seeking true wizards. Fear permeated the air as if the dementors were breeding once more.

It took more time than either of them had thought it would to come upon the Malfoy estate. It stood in all its glory, protected from muggle attention by generations of repelling wards and workings, but empty. Draco had been the last of the great line to fall. The gates were closed, but they parted when Harry lifted Draco’s wand.

The manor had suffered since Harry had last been within its walls, possibly due to Voldemort’s wrath after his escape from the Malfoys, great gouges taken from the floors, walls cracked, portraits charred. The smell of burnt things lingered in the cold hall.

He could almost hear Hermione’s screams again, Ron howling out her name again and again.

George was looking at him again with a look like obsidian in his eyes, hard and sharp, but his voice was low and closer to kindness than Harry had heard in a long while. “We can’t afford to fuck this up, so let’s grab some rest. If the muggles haven’t found this place yet, they won’t find it in the next twelve hours.”

Harry pushed his hands through his hair, wanting to protest, but in truth he was exhausted. So exhausted. “Yeah, I suppose it won’t hurt.”

“It might - remember they were dark wizards, keep an eye out for anything nasty they could have left for the muggles to find,” was George’s words of caution.

He gave a nod, and looked at the stairs as if they were more intimidating than a mountain. “...I’m going to kip on a sofa,” he said. He found something that might have been a sitting room once, and pulled one of the couches to the fireplace. George had gone elsewhere, so Harry lit a fire without magic (it was awkward and slow, but he didn’t dare try magic even here. Not yet.)

After some effort, he had a blaze going and he lay down with a deep sigh, drifting off almost at once despite the high tension.

George woke him a short while later, having found some unspoilt food. It was better fare than what they had been able to get for a while, if somewhat plain and stale. Harry fell back asleep watching the living Weasley twin bringing a sofa close to the fire in mirror of Harry’s, as well as letting the muggle lie down to rest.

He dreamed of battle. Gun cracks, flashes of spells, the smell of burned flesh and spilled gore, the broken wavering wail of the broken and dying. He cowered, hiding from the muggles in gas masks, the air burning on each breath, catching in his throat, each stifled cough bringing the taste of blood with it, his eyes raw but he couldn’t shut them, too afraid -

And someone was coming through the haze of smoke and fumes. Tall and thin with eyes that glowed a terrible red, a darkness spilling into the air around him like a mantle. He came on, not flinching from the retort of gunfire, not struggling to breath or see from the toxic smoke, right up to where Harry had hid, and extended his hand - to attack, he thought in a terrible moment of horror - only, no, it was in offering. “It’s time to rise,” Voldemort said with cold command and absolute control. “Harry. Get up.”

Slowly, he lifted his hand to take Voldemort’s - only the image wavered, and burst like a soap bubble. It wasn’t Voldemort standing over him, but George.

His whole body ached, but that was nothing new. He let his hand drop. “All right, let’s... get this started.”

They had breakfast of last night’s leftovers, then went looking for what Draco had told them about. The Malfoy’s Grimoire. All the old, Dark families had them, Malfoy had said, filled with secret magics that passed down through the family lines, no longer taught but hoarded close in hope that one day they might be. And there was one ritual Draco had told them of, so powerful and terrible that it may save them, or ruin them entire.

It was not in the secret stash under the dining room where Draco had last seen it, but Harry thought it was a long shot, seeing as Mr Weasley had searched there back in Harry’s Hogwarts years, and confiscated all manner of Dark objects, so for several hours he and George hunted through the house, looking for traces or hints. It was George who finally found it, in plain sight. There was a massive, old painting hung in the entryway, empty now but for a gilded chair, an elegant table that held a battered book and a skull atop it.

George stared at the painting for a long moment as Harry trudged down the sweeping staircase, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “I think that’s it,” George said as Harry came to a stop beside him. “There, under the skull.”

Harry looked at it, his brows rising a little. “Maybe, but it’s a painting. We need the real thing -”

“I’m telling you. I think that’s it. Look at it, the brushwork is different, the shades of the colours are just wrong for the painting’s date-”

“Oh bravo,” came a deep voice that made both Harry and George start, their wands suddenly in their hands at pointing at the voice’s origin, which happened to be the skull. It laughed at them, two sparks of witchlight flickering to being in its sockets, an eerie shade of blue. “Jumpy pair of thieves, aren’t you?” it drawled in that rich voice, faintly accented with something Welsh Harry noticed.

“We don’t plan on stealing anything,” Harry rallied, trying to calm his breathing after the shock.

“But you desire what lies in my book, and you are not my blood. This makes you nothing more than a pair of thieves.” The glow in the skull’s eyes grew brighter at that, an undeniable sense of danger prickled over Harry’s skin.

“You’re a Malfoy?” Harry asked. “The last heir, Draco, he sent us.”

The twin lights flickered brighter than dimmed down again. “I am not _Malfoy_ , but they are mine. Why would my heir send you, and not come himself?”

“You know why,” George said harshly. “He’s dead. Just like the Blacks, just like the Notts, the Greengrass, the Longbottoms, everyone. The Muggles found us and they will not stop until we are broken.”

The skull didn’t speak for another contemplative moment, the light in its eyes flaring and dying as it thought, “You may yet be lying.”

“Do you see any other portrait? Have you ever seen this happen before? They have a means to kill magic. Please, we don’t know how to prove it, but I swear, we won’t take the book from this house, but if we use one of the spells - we can undo it all.”

“That spell. My worst, my shame. A true worldbreaker. It comes at terrible cost, as do they all...”

Harry looked to George. The redhead let out a hard sigh and called, “Get in here!” The muggle (Harry still didn’t know his name, never wanted to know) joined them after a moment.

“We came prepared,” Harry said, his voice bleak, an awful aching hollowness in his chest. He looked back to the painting, and was almost certain the skull was looking at him, though it had no eyes to do so.

“I will permit you to take the book, on condition that you take me with you where you go.”

“What?” George hissed. “We can’t take you, you’re...huge!”

“As the book is here, so am I. And I would know if my spell works as I designed it to - if not, then I can warn future fools against it.”

Harry felt like he was being tricked somehow, but he couldn’t see how. “George, we don’t have time. Let’s just agree, all right? What harm can it do.”

George looked conflicted, his mouth twisting down in distaste as he looked between the skull and Harry. “All right. I don’t like it, but all right.”

Harry nodded, then looked up at the skull. “How do we...”

“Just reach up and take me,” the skull said. As Harry started forwards to touch the painting however, the skull laughed. “No, no. Step back, it’s all a matter of perspective. Until we are the right size in your eye, only then reach for me.”

Harry did as the skull said, and moved back until the painting’s subjects were of rational sizes, then lifted his hands to cup the air under the skull. He didn’t believe it would actually work - and by the incredulous look on George’s face, he didn’t either, but a heartbeat later and he felt a weight settle on his palm, like a bird had alighted there. Then, all at once, he was holding the skull of Draco Malfoy’s ancestor. “Wow,” he whispered.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” George murmured in wonder, coming to stand beside Harry, staring at the skull then looking to the painting. He lifted his own hands and grasped at the air, and for a moment Harry thought it hadn’t worked - but then there was a book in George’s hand’s, a very heavy one given how his arms sagged at once and he had to scramble to keep hold of it.

“Careful with that,” the skull snapped. “It is to come to no harm under your care, is that understood?”

“Why do you care, there’s no one to pass it on to,” George retorted, but handled the book carefully all the same. “Where is it,” he asked absently as he paged through the book, grimacing and hissing air through his teeth as he looked at what was on the pages. “Oh Merlin - I knew they were Dark but... this is more than blood magic. It’s all death magic. Necromancy.”

“We know our trade,” the skull murmured, pride and amusement colouring its words.

Harry and George traded looks. They wavered on that edge for a moment, guilt and caution and deep knowing that this was all wrong. But what other way was there? What other hope was there?

“It’ll be worth it,” Harry said, his voice firmer, harder, colder than he felt. He let out a shaking breath. “We knew what it would involve before we came,” he flicked a glance to the muggle, docile and waiting. It had been difficult isolating one of them, but neither Harry not George had wanted to take a civilian.

This man knew the risks of serving. He knew he might die defending his country. Better him than some housewife.

“...I think this is it,” George said after several moments, glancing up at Harry. “It’s written in old English though, hang on...”

“The time serpent,” the skull said. “I can guide your steps. Fetch chalk, you must draw a circle before we begin; three ley lines converge here. Down in the dung- aha. Cellars is the best place for this casting. Do you have an athame?”

“Uh, what-” Harry started, but George broke across him.

“No, we don’t. A ritual dagger - didn’t think we’d have to... I thought the killing curse, or severing curse would do it.”

“It is required, casting wand magics would disrupt the lines. There is one kept in the cabinet, simply open the right door, close it, open the left then the right and close the left and it will show you the treasures it holds.”

“Shouldn’t you be trying to stop us from taking your family’s artifacts?” Harry asked as he made the muggle hold the skull before moving to do as he had been told.

“If I am to believe you, this is how I can protect them. They are dead, that much I know is true, and it is dire indeed if the muggles slay our kind without mercy.”

Harry swallowed, nodded then took up the dagger. It was old, the metalwork crude but beautiful all the same, the light catching oddly on the blade. “Is this all we’ll need?” He looked to George who was frowning over the grimoire.

“Yeah, it looks like it’s arithmancy for the most part.”

“Right. Well. Cellars, then.” Harry led the way, George making the muggle man follow after him down the steps into the stale air of the callar. A chill crept over him, sliding in between the gaps in his clothing. It was dark down here, so just as Ron had when they were down here last, Harry took out the Put Outer and clicked it, letting the little sparks of captive light spill out and hang in the air.

“Interesting,” the skull murmured. “Not wand magic... it should be fine to see by for the ritual.”

“That’s a relief,” George said as he descended, “I can’t draw perfect circles in pitch black. All right, where are the lines converging?”

The skull directed him to the place, and George started to draw the lines, first a small circle that he had the muggle stand in then a second, larger one around it, then a third, smaller, that rested against the larger circle’s edge and cut through the inner circle. Three lines sliced through the three circles, and looking at it made Harry feel queasy. A strange buzzing weight grew as George worked, like the heat of summer pressing down on them but it was cold, and hungry, and grasping.

George’s breath plumed like dragon breath on a chill winter morning as he finished. “That’s bitter magic. Feel it, Harry? Old, and mean...”

“Yeah. I feel it.”

The skull’s eyes burned bright in the low light, pilling blue all about them and giving the muggle terrible shadows. “No incantations. No wands. No potions. Just will, and power, and the price paid in full. Ready, boy?”

Harry swallowed, then nodded - but George stopped him. “Wait - we didn’t talk about this. We didn’t decide who would... would...”

“That is obvious,” the skull chided. “Such a decision should not be left until the last instant. Nor,” he said, voice ringing in the enclosed space, “should you try to distance yourself from the victim. Lean his name, know he is a man, a human with hopes and dreams and fears and family. Know what you take from the world, even as you unravel it. That is part of the price.”

Harry couldn’t breath for a moment. The air pressed close around him and he couldn’t get it into his lungs. Suddenly George was there, warm hands on his shoulders, eyes filled with horror and worry fixed on his own. “Harry, slow down, it’s safe here, ok? Just me and you, yeah?”

“...Yeah,” he replied, a dizziness in his head that whispered and roared the wrongness of it all.

“If you cannot bear to simply speak to the muggle, how do you expect to drive a knife into his heart?” came the skull’s voice, stripping away the minimal comfort Harry had found in the moment and forcing hard reality upon him.

He was going to do this.

How many had died already, how many muggles and wizards had been slaughtered? One man’s death and he could reverse it. It was worth it. It was worth it.

“You,” he said, his voice wavering, sounding weak. Frail. But the muggle turned his head, his focus vague. “What’s your name.”

“Simon,” the man replied, his voice sounding rough from disuse. “Simon Wallace.”

Simon Wallace. The man who would die for them all to live. “Simon. This.. this is going to hurt. But stay there.”

“You must dispel it first,” the skull interjected again.

“Why didn’t you tell us sooner,” George snarled, “We could have tied him down! No, Harry, there’s no time. I’ll - God! I’ll hold him.” He ripped the muggle’s - Simon’s - shirt open, buttons pattering as they were torn free. He knelt on Simon’s belly, knee jammed hard into the soft vulnerable flesh, his weight on the man’s wrists at his side. “Put your knee on his shoulder, or he’ll headbutt me when I let go.”

“Right,” Harry said, doing as instructed, feeling like he was suddenly in Dudley’s place, holding power over someone weaker than himself for his own ends. “Do it.”

The spell ended without fanfare. The man beneath them jerked as he had his free will returned to him, his docile eyes snapping wide and fearful. “No!” he barked, giving a hard jerk under them. “No, please, don’t! I have children! I’m all they have!”

“Harry,” George hissed, “Do it or take his wrists so I can.”

It was tempting. So very tempting to pass the blade to George so he could drive it in. But he couldn’t ask George to do it, not after he’d let Harry drag him up and down the country on the promise of making it right.

He lifted the blade. Simon sobs and howled and cursed him the only way muggles could. Then he brought the blade down as if trying to drive it through the hard packed floor, all the way to the earth’s core -

felt blade scrape bone -

felt ~~the man~~  ( _Simon_ ) under them jerk and his screams fall to nothing -

felt the work crumble around them and a great and terrible pressure -

felt the utter and absolute nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> I am going to be honest with you right now, Harry and George are basically going to suck dick to win a war that won't start for 50+ years. The set up for the butt touching might take a while, but I am determined. Visit me over on effingeden.tumblr.com for various memes, drop me a comment if you'd like to see more~


End file.
